Assembling a Commodity-Producing Commons: Deep-sea Mining and the International Seabed

The construction of the seabed as a resource to be acted upon, extracted from and speculated about has been essential for capital's journey towards the deep-sea. Various sectors have been enrolled in this ‘making’ of the deep-sea as resource, working across material and ontological axes to commodify abyssal places as objects for exploit. Simultaneous to this deep-sea commodification has been the legal establishment and governance of the international seabed as a place of commons. This raises questions about the relationship between commodification and commoning and how they interact in the ocean abyss. Through analysis of deep-sea mining activities and ambitions in areas beyond national jurisdiction, this paper argues that commodification and commoning coalesce in the international seabed to mutually assemble the deep-sea as a commodity-producing commons. A tragedy of the commodity framework is engaged to analyse this distinct seabed assemblage, drawing upon insights offered by four key concepts: fictitious commodities, exchange-value, metabolic rift and enclosure. This enables a sophisticated account of how the international seabed is being produced as a commodity-producing commons that complements existing scholarship and alerts us to opportunities for resistance.